Anyone who rents a car in Kansas City or spends a night in a hotel here will have helped pay for the Sprint Center.

The $276 million arena was completed in 2007.

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Arena management company AEG paid for about 20 percent of the construction cost, and the city paid for about 80 percent.

Following Friday's announcement of a collapsed arena-funding deal with the owners of the Sacramento Kings, Mayor Kevin Johnson said Sacramento will continue to study other funding options, including the Kansas City model.

To pay their share, leaders in Missouri's biggest city borrowed about $221 million by issuing long-term bonds.

AEG and the city have a revenue-sharing agreement that has resulted in the city receving $6.1 million.

"It is a very delicate situation, but we've been very fortunate to make it work," Shani Tate, spokeswoman for AEG, told KCRA 3.

Tate declined to specify how much profit the company makes off of the arena.

Randall Landes, Kansas City's director of finance, said that a small portion of the city's revenue-sharing profits have gone to help repay the arena.

However, Landes said, the majority of those funds have been used to cover operating expenses at another city facility, Kemper Arena.

To repay the bonds, Kansas City created special taxes on hotel stays and car rentals.

The hotel tax equals $1.50 per night, and the car rental tax amounts to $4 per day. Fifty cents of the car rental tax go to the Kansas City Convention and Visitors Association, and the remainder goes to the arena debt.

The car rental and hotel taxes peaked in 2008 but have since fallen.

Tax Revenues Sometimes Fall Short Of Bond Payments

According to city documents, tax revenues in 2010 and 2011 covered only about 92 percent of the arena payments.

Landes said so far, the city has been able to make up the difference by using money left over from the arena's construction.

"Surplus license fees were accumulated during the construction period for the arena. Those funds, in the amount of $11.2 million currently, are available to to help cover revenue gaps," said Landes.

While the city is not legally obligated to pay the arena bonds, any default could result in a downgrading of the city's credit rating.

"The city is committed to covering any shortfall in revenues for any bond issue on which the city has placed its pledge," said Landes.

"These new projects almost never produce the revenues that were promised by the promoters and the developers of them," said Richard Tolbert, a former Kansas City Council member.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Kansas City's population in 2010 was 459,787. That was slightly less than Sacramento's population of 466,488.

Sacramento also had a higher median household income than Kansas City, $50,267 and $44,113 respectively.

However, a significant difference could be the location of the cities' airports. Kansas City International Airport is located within the city limits, so the city's car rental tax applies.

Sacramento International Airport is located outside city limits. To include airport car rentals in an arena-funding mechanism, the city would need the approval of the county Board of Supervisors.